REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The General Election Commission (KPU) said that a total of 29 countries, through their embassies, have monitored the second round of the Jakarta gubernatorial election on Wednesday.

The embassies have sent 51 delegations to directly observe the Jakarta governor runoff election, beginning from the vote casting to the vote counting, at a number of polling stations of TPS.

"There are 29 countries that have joined the election observation mission," KPU Chairman Arief Budiman stated while inspecting TPS 095 at Pondok Bambu Women Correctional Institute on Wednesday.

Countries sending their observation teams include Australia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Sri Lanka, France, Brazil, Mozambique, Germany, Britain, and Singapore.

Apart from countries' delegations, a number of non-governmental election observer organizations also took part in the election monitoring.

According to Arief, the quality of regional head election is increasingly improving so as to attract a number of countries to send their observation mission to directly observe the implementation of the election. 

He noted that the teams directly monitored the implementation in the field to check whether the TPS abides by the regulations.

"The election implementation runs relatively well, although admittedly it is not yet perfect. We have recorded improving conditions in many stages," he added.

The Jakarta Regional Election Commission has organized the election for two pairs of Jakarta governor candidates, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok)-Djarot Saiful Hidayat pair and Anies Baswedan-Sandiaga Uno pair to contest in the second round of the Jakarta gubernatorial election.

Ahok is the incumbent Jakarta governor, while Djarot is the incumbent deputy governor.

The runoff was held after neither candidate pair managed to gain a majority in the first round of the Jakarta regional head election held on Feb 15, which was contested by three candidate pairs.

The three candidate pairs who took part in the Feb 15 election were Agus Harimurti-Sylviana Murni, Ahok-Djarot, and Anies-Sandiaga.

In the first round of the election, Agus, who is the son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, received the least number of votes.

The Ahok and Anies pairs are contesting in the runoff election to decide the winner of the Jakarta gubernatorial election for the next five-year period from 2017 to 2022.

A total of 7.2 million eligible voters in Jakarta are expected to cast their votes in the Jakarta runoff election on Wednesday.

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